Most would probably say that Apple bringing Intel chips to the Mac computer lineup was one of the company's better decisions. It brought compatibility and support to a whole new level and it offered processors for the computers that were simply put, a better decision for Apple than the PowerPC processors.

A report this morning from Bloomberg reveals that Apple is still in talks about abandoning the Intel processors in favor of something different to "further distinguish" its machines and software from that of its competition:

Originally Posted by Bloomberg

Apple has also deliberated over moving away from Intel chips in the Macintosh, say two people familiar with these discussions. Such a shift would be difficult and isn’t imminent, though it would allow Apple to further distinguish its laptops and desktops from competitors that run Intel’s (INTC) chips and Microsoft’s Windows software.

It wouldn’t be an easy process to convert to something different, as the company would have to choose what direction to go besides Intel. There are other alternatives such as AMD, but Apple could also choose to design their own type of chip for Macs, as they have done with the iPhone 5’s A6 chip.

Judging the magnitude of the change, it is likely that it won’t happen any time in the near future as such a change would require countless prototypes and testing phases to get everything just right.

This is retarded, bringing Intel to macs was the best move apple made. I love running windows 7 on its own partition on my Mac, something that may not be possible if Apple designs their own chip. Hope it don't happen.

Agreed, this is a horrible choice. Being able to run other OSes on a MAC was HUGE and has been a major selling point. Nixing that could have major repercussions.

I really don't think that is what is going on in this article. I doubt Apple is talking about moving away from the x86 (or x86-64) architecture. Just the brand of the CPU... AMD processors can still run a windows OS just the same. If I am reading it correctly (and if i'm not, then that is time to panic) they would just be moving brands to another processor, or create their own silicon like an A6 (only not ARM based) to sell over intel. It would be extremely silly to move away from the x86 architecture.

Wow, if they abandon x86 (which the article DOES NOT say they will) this will show how much apple is missing SJ. That would be a huge step backwards as it would eliminate a major advantage of mac's (the ability to run BOTH mac os x and windows). There is still a whole lot of programs that (unfortunately) run only on windows, without them os x is back to a niche os.